73. The Funeral.
The kind and loving mother of those two children is dead, and going to the grave! It is too late now to be dutiful to her, for she cannot open her eyes to look at you, they are shut for ever; it is too late to do as she bid you, for her lips are closed, and she cannot speak: it is too late to wait upon her now, for she no longer requires your assistance! O, little girl and little boy, if your dear mamma be still alive, be very kind and dutiful to her before this sorrowful day comes; or else it will be too late to do any thing for her, but cry very bitterly over her grave.
74. The Charity Children.
These charity children are coming from church, with the two parish-beadles before them. Several thousands of poor children are taught to read, work, and write, in the different charity-schools of London, and to do their duty to God and to their neighbours; which will enable them to become respectable in this world, and tend to make them happy in the next.
Once a year, about six thousand charity children, dressed in uniforms of different colours, assemble in St. Paul’s Cathedral, on benches raised to a great height one above the other, circularly, under the dome. The order with which each school finds its own situation, and the union of so many voices, all raised at one moment to the praise of their great Creator, as they chant the hundredth psalm on the entrance of the clergyman, cause a most delightful and affecting sensation in the minds of the spectators. The solemnity of the place, and the hope that so much innocence, under such protection, would be reared to virtue and happiness, must add greatly to the effect.
This uncommon scene is well described in the following lines.
’Twas in the pleasant month of June, their hands and faces clean,
The children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green;
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of St. Paul’s, they, like Thames’ waters, flow.
Oh! what a multitude they seem’d, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own!The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs;
Thousands of little boys and girls, raising their innocent hands;
Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings, the seats of heav’n among.
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor:
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.
75. Highgate Tunnel.
This grand excavation was made in 1821, through the eastern side of Highgate-hill, for the purpose of easing the draught of horses in passing in this direction. There is also a grand archway across, over the Tunnel, which connects Highgate with Hornsey.